80122: Canvassing

Contact Info

If you have recently had one of our community outreach staff come to your door or have heard about them working in your neighborhood, please review the below questions to learn a bit more about why we canvass and how you can connect with our Canvass Director.

You can also view a schedule at the left (updated weekly) to see when our canvassers will be in your community.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do you send people door to door?

The Blue Bench has a team of passionate, full-time and highly trained community organizers who are committed to inspiring fellow community members to join us in our fight to end sexual assault. We find our door-to-door efforts to be an incredibly effective way to inform the public about the realities of sexual assault, to collect donations, and, perhaps most importantly, to ensure every household in the Denver area knows this resource exists for them and their loved ones. Throughout our history, many people have found the courage, by talking with one of our canvassers, to seek the support they need to heal.

Is this a legitimate organization/operation?

Yes. The Blue Bench began in 1983 as a rape crisis hotline in the basement of a church after the concerned friends of a survivor discovered there were no support-based resources in Denver. To raise funds for the organization and spread the word about the crisis line, the friends went door to door. This was successful 30+ years ago and continues to be a successful way for the organization to engage with the community and spread awareness about our cause.

We also coordinate with the neighborhoods we canvass in as well as alert local police departments about our presence.

Isn’t it odd to send young women out alone at night to knock on strangers’ doors?

We know that in Colorado, 1 in 4 women will be the victim of an attempted or completed sexual assault in their lifetime. Safety is always a top priority for our staff, which is why we canvass in groups within every neighborhood, have multiple staff check-ins during the evening and coordinate with local police whenever we are working in a community. We are also fighting to eliminate the rape culture stigma that women must always be hyper-vigilant and are solely responsible for “not being assaulted.” One of the messages we often speak about is holding the perpetrator accountable for their actions rather than blaming the victim from not being able to prevent an assault. Our goal as an organization is to foster communities where everyone, (including men, who are sexually assaulted at a rate of 1 in 17 in Colorado) will be safe.

Why are you knocking on my door so late/can’t you come earlier?

In our efforts to reach out to as many people as possible, we knock on doors from 4-9 pm. We find that this is when the most people are home and willing to engage with our staff about the issue.

I have a “No Solicitors” sign at my house. Why are you still knocking on my door?

As a non-profit organization, canvass activities that advocate civic, religious, charitable or political causes are exempt from the “No Knock” ordinance that exists in some neighborhoods. Some communities will give our canvassers badges to wear around the neighborhood that explains this exemption.

How often do you come to my neighborhood?

The Blue Bench serves 9 counties throughout metro Denver including Denver, Arapahoe, Douglas, Lincoln, Elbert, Jefferson, Gilpin, Broomfield and Adams, which adds up to a lot of different neighborhoods to visit. Because of this, we visit each zip code once a year. We try to make sure canvassers are not repeating houses during our time in a community, but mistakes can happen. We apologize if you’ve had more than one person knock on your door during our time in your community.

One of your canvassers was very rude to me or made me feel unsafe. What can I do about this?

Disrespectful, threatening, aggressive or rude behavior is NEVER part of our training nor do we condone it from any member of our staff under any circumstances. If you felt you had a particularly negative experience with one of our outreach staff that was not addressed by the information above, we want to hear about it so we can address it directly with our staff. Please fill out the form below to speak directly to our Canvass Director.

Canvass Comments

Comments

In order to make sure we can address the situation appropriately, please provide us with as many details as you are comfortable with such as the canvassers name, your cross streets, etc. This form is secure and will not be shared outside of organizational management.

Privacy Policy

What Information Do We Collect?
When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.

Personal Information You Choose to Provide
We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys.
If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.

Website Use Information
Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.

How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?
Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.

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How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies?
We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users.
Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.

Notice of New Services and Changes
Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.

How Do We Secure Information Transmissions?
When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website.
Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.

How Do We Protect Your Information?
Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction.
Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information.
Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.

How Can You Access and Correct Your Information?
You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.

Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties?
We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.

What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information?
We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

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Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.